A boulder carved into the shape of the cosmonaut's head.

The place that allegedly inspired James Hilton's depiction of Shangri-La.

A place as enchanting as the journey to reach it is harrowing.

Unique pagan culture in three extremely remote mountain valleys.

Be careful not to get trampled at this lively two thousand-year-old market.

A strip of neutral ground where the people of Tajikistan and Afghanistan come together to trade.

A cave covered with bizarre stalactites of cloth.

18m long sarcophagus of a constantly growing dead prophet.

Light still pours into the ruins of this ancient Islamic observatory.

Looking for a unifying history, Uzbekistan finds its answer in a 14th Century Turco-Mongol conqueror... despite the fact he wasn't Uzbek.

Touching displays of wishes for peace from the Cold War era.

World's oldest and largest space launch facility, once a secret missile testing site.

Former island in the Aral Sea used to be a top-secret Russian bio-weapons facility.

Mysterious spherical rocks in the semi-desert of western Kazakhstan.

Once a bustling fishing port, this semi-ghost town is now more than 90 miles away from the shore.

This circular Iranian jail was once a political prison run by the country's secret police.

An eccentric dictator's take on a Turkmen version of Disneyland.

Iranian tombstones shaped like male and female sexual organs.

A cemetery with goat-horn bedecked gravestones.

This cavernous swimming spot doubles as a home to the largest known colony of bats in Central Asia.

A fiery crater has been burning in the Karakum Desert since 1971.

Does this strange mural depict witches battling beneath a penis tree?

Take a giant yellow bird cage to the top of Elba's highest mountain.

The forbidden island of the Tuscan Archipelago may still contain buried treasure.